Professional Documents
Culture Documents
DISCONTINUI-
T Y: T H E L E G A -
C Y O F G L I -T C H
TCH
M R
Tracing the history of
electronic musicians who nd
power in technological failure.
30
clips, and uctuating patches ularized by Autechre, Mouse aptly describe its sound in the mercialization. Szepanski, a
as physical entities to be mold- on Mars, and especially Mille liner notes to Mille Plateaux s sociology student and political
ed, re-pitched, and chopped Plateaux, a Frankfurt-based Clicks & Cuts 2 as not being activist in late- 80s Germany,
into unidentiable new shapes. electronic label whose roster a genre but a movement, a saw glitchy techno as a mani-
Noteworthy examples include included Oval, Thomas Kner, shared inclination or perhaps a festation of neo-Marxist theory
the choir of fragmented voices Tim Hecker, Gas, and more. disinclination: a collective ap- within art.
on Holly Herndon s Chorus ; proach to discontinuity.
the leathery bass scrunch of A glitch is the sound of mu- In an interview with Marxist
M.E.S.H. s Piteous Gate ; the sical malfunction. Its sourc- Mille Plateaux s output exem- scholar Katja Diefenbach, ar-
spasmodic artillery blasts that es range from circuit-bent plied this open-ended de- chived on the current iteration
open Arca s Mutant ; and the or damaged equipment (i.e., nition of glitcha point illus- of milleplateaux.net, Szepanski
shuddering cybernetic vocal Oval s CD skips) to the noise trated even more clearly by describes glitch s push against
jumble on Amnesia Scanner & of digital processing (i.e., the the sheer variety of sounds on the material limits of the re-
Bill Kouligas LEXACHAST. compression hiss and looped their 1999 compilation, Mod- cording process as a form of
static of Pan Sonic s Vakio). ulation & Transformation 4. deterritorialization, a term
The present-day vogue for 90s glitches often derived, Curd Duca s dismemberment taken from Gilles Deleuze and
defacing source material and too, from sounds that aped of a Frankie Valli sample on Felix Guattari s 1972 book
exploring the limits of record- a computer-system crash Touch certainly constitutes Anti-Oedipus. In that book, it
ing software follows a long note the screeching, exploded a glitch, but so do the glacial betokens, alternately, a shift
tradition. Musicians have been breakbeats on Aphex Twin s sweeps of digital feedback on away from any belief system
testing their medium s mal- landmark Richard D. James Thomas Kner s Mesurait la imposed by the capitalist sys-
functions since before digital Album. Force. On both tracks, what tem; a radical form of social
recording technology became we hear is the sound of the re- transformation with sweeping
widely available, from Karl- The word glitch rst gained cording medium being pushed eects on the human condi-
heinz Stockhausen s implemen- traction in the common ver- to its limits. tion; and, in the context of
tation of radio in Kontakte nacular when astronaut John Freud s theory of the Oedipal
(1958-60) to Steve Reich s It s Glenn used it in his 1962 But what might the disrup- complex, a movement from a
Gonna Rain (1965), which book, Into Orbit, referring to tions of glitch mean on a cul- xed sexual identity to a uid
integrated the idiosyncrasies irregularities in the trajectory tural level? For Mille Plateaux one. Curiously, the term also
of the tape machine into the of the Project Mercury space- founder Achim Szepanski, the comes up in a 1987 work
composition process. Fast craft. Its origins as a musical disorder of glitch represent- calledwait for itA Thou-
forward to 1994, when the art term are uncertain, though the ed a way for rave culture to sand Plateaus (or Mille Pla-
of equipment-tampering and Autechre track Glitch, from continue as a form of coun- teaux).
accidental sounds gave rise to their sophomore LP, Amber, tercultural rebellion at a mo-
glitch, a loosely dened sub- dates back to 1994. Later, in ment when its popularity was In the aforementioned inter-
genre of electronic music pop- 2001, Philip Sherburne would leading toward greater com- view, Szepanski, for his part,
32
uses deterritorialization in a CD skipping, the shudders ing in digitally constructed quently capture the textural
two senses. Rave culture, he of time-stretchingall are the virtual realities. chaos Szepanski associated
says, was deterritorialized results of sound being trans- with deterritorialization, the
when it was wrenched from its formed from material instru- In the years separating Oval eect is more integrated with
social and geographic origins, ment into an invisible digital and Arca, music software has the human experience of dig-
and sponsored by mass-me- signal. They evoke an aware- made it possible to squish ital culture than the detached
dia companies like Insomniac ness that the music we are sounds into erratic timbres atmospherics of Mille Plateaux.
Events, the promoter of the listening to exists in the digital with unprecedented ecien- In an interview for Resident
Electric Daisy Carnival. Sze- planeor, as Szepanski puts it cy and ease. Is it a stretch to Advisor, James Whipple, a.k.a.
connect contemporary artists
panski s other interpretation in the interview, a non-place. M.E.S.H., explained his highly
(which I will subsequently
of the concept concerns elec- curatorial process of cutting
refer to as practitioners of
troacousticsor the use of But if glitch was incubated in fragments from YouTube sam-
digital melt ) with glitchor
recording technology to trans- the coldly theoretical environ- ples of amateurs [who] end up
malfunction when it is cre-
form sound from an acoustic ment of teutonic, post-rave ated in software meticulously having audio recording equip-
to an electric signal. electronica, it has expand- engineered to be able to twist ment [...] that s pretty high-
ed its reach in recent years. sound into wild new shapes? end. Herndon, meanwhile,
In the time between the inven- Now electronic musicians The manual of Ableton Live, uses shreds of Skype chats
tion of the phonograph and are not conned to mining the standard recording plat- and ASMR videos to explore
the advent of the chipmunked sounds from clunky 90s MIDI form for loop-based electronic computers as psychic spaces.
jungle sample, he suggests, hardware; instead, they have music production, describes Microcuts of samples take the
sound had become more and smartphone recorders and an its musical les as remain- form of skittery percussion
more detached from a tangi- unending YouTube library full ing elastic at all times. Ev- tracks, inducing a sense of blur
ble source. As live studio re- of eld recordings that they ery sound that you drop or and tumult, and evoking the
cording gave way increasingly can drop into their recording track into the program can be sensation of information over-
to sound design, music was timelines with a click of the stretched, shrunk, or detuned load that a social media rab-
eectively becoming invisi- mouse. The younger genera- to the point where the result- bithole can trigger.
ble, reduced to the transmis- tion of artists has embraced a ing waveforms end up devoid
sion of MIDI currents; in the palette that plays on the idea of any traces of physical musi- Deleuzeand, for that mat-
cal instrumentationor of any
process, its relationship to of a virtual environment, in the ter, Szepanski at the outset of
earthly form, for that matter.
space and time had changed, sense that most of the sounds Mille Plateauxcould not have
rendered newly malleable only exist in a computer-gen- predicted how thoroughly
Artists like Arca, Holly Hern-
via the introduction of skips, erated capacity. This insularity and powerfully the concept of
don, Rabit, Amnesia Scan-
reversals, delay trails, and a functions as a musical mirror ner, Ash Koosha, Lotic, and deterritorialization would in-
continuous spectrum of BPMs. of the culture at large, where M.E.S.H. heavily utilize the sinuate itself, via the internet,
The spectral hallucination of people routinely spend huge plasticity of the digital format. into the fabric of everyday life.
digital delay, the splinters of portions of their lives convers- While their productions fre- The music of this new wave
34
of artists, with its synthetic Labels like Mille Plateaux set
otherworldliness and dysto- a precedent for an electron-
pian undertones, can come ic music concerned with the
across as a warning about the glitch as a form that could
speed with which the virtual illuminateand dismantle
plane has taken hold through how electronic music is made.
social media. But then again, The new generation seems less
acknowledging the extent to interested in clarifying the re-
which we live our lives online cording process than in push-
doesn t demand the stance of ing it further into chaos. You
a skeptic. It can also lead to an can t decode software s inner
embrace of virtual, as many workings in the same way that
of these artists are doing with an acid-house-inspired, mod-
their music. ular wizard can understand
the movement and oscillations
At the same time, technolo- of current. As a result, armed
gy s advance is changing what by new technologies, we re on
we mean when we talk about our way to creating a musical
glitch. When we listen to a world that the human mind
Lotic track, and hear a digi- cannot technically decipher. If
tally lacerated moan or some- glitch, as Eno once described
thing that sounds like esh it, is the sound of failure, then
being splattered by metal, it digital melt is the sound of
doesn t seem to be an accident; oblivion.
it sounds cruelly intentional.
That artist s recent album, Ag-
itations, revels in its power to
give virtual sounds a sense of
physicality through straining
and torturing them. His em-
brace of the destructive, even
sadistic potential of technology
scratches a social itch as well,
countering the utopian vision
of technology promulgated by
the Silicon Valley set.
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DIY WORLDWIDE: Max Parrott
AUSTIN, TEXAS contemplates the future of
NOISE & HARDCORE extreme music in the rapidly-
gentrifying Austin, Texas
Last September, I went to a noise festival high volumes. The performer on the floor abraded
unapologetically organized on the anniversary of the cinderblock with the handsaw while the other
9/11 in my home neighborhood of East Austin. It manipulated the output from the contact mic,
hosted a logistical clusterfuck of a bill featuring over blasting low end that was simultaneously deep
50 acts from across America set to play during the and abrasive. As the performer with the handsaw
course of one night, impressively curated to include, thrashed around with it in her bare hands with her
just to name a few, B L A C K I E, Guerilla Toss, legs exposed, she opened up a considerable stream
SSLEEPERHOLD, Dreamcrusher, Future Blondes, of blood that spread out in splotches where she was
Xander Harris, and Sobering. Midway through sitting.
the show, a two-piece act set up: one member was This spectacle transpired at a place called
perched above a briefcase full of pedals on a table Club 1808, a bar with an open kitchen, owned by a
and the other set up a cinder block and pulled out a black family that had been in the neighborhood since
handsaw with a contact mic fastened to it, the cord the start of Austins population boom about twenty
disappearing back into her band mates pedal board. years ago. That they opened their family-run bar
This duo goes by Roy Wrenat the time, out to Austins prolific noise booker Johnathan Cash
on tour from their respective homes in Richmond is totally incidental: it was not because they sought
and Baltimoreand they proceeded with a short, the self-immolating catharsis of noise music that
improvised exploration of piercing textures at they hosted Johnnys shows again and again. The
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truth is that Johnnys shows have a strong following Though the cohabitation between the noise
MAX PARROTT
When said owners turned on the lights after the show down.
Roy Wrens set and were confronted with a puddle The ethics of the situation are a jumbled mess.
of blood on their floor, they were understandably It could equally be argued that hate speechhere
dismayed. The woman in charge of the kitchen in the form of a racial sluris on one hand, an ill-
sprinted over with screaming protests and bleach in judged taboo worthy of investigation, and on the
hand. In that moment, tensions flared. Johnathan other, not the appropriate domain of an artist from
Cash told me later, The owner was not concerned the class that typically propagates that speech. This
about anyones safety, he just came up to me and was is certainly not a new conversation in the realm of
like Johnny, if a cop were to come in here I would noise performance. Anyone who has tried to wrap
be in trouble. What Joan Didion said in The their head around the misogynist provocations of
White Album about her Hollywood neighborhood Brainbombs or Whitehouse gets trapped in a similar
in the late 60s was true about this scene at 1808: rock-and-hard-place scenario between dissecting
It was anticipation of imminent but not exactly satirical intentions and defending hate speech.
immediate destruction that lent the neighborhood its Value judgements aside, its undeniable that such
particular character. The landscape of 1808s block conversations will cease to exist in Austin without
is a tight grid of working class-inhabited one-story spaces like 1808 where art can defy etiquette.
bungalows, separated from the downtown high-rises Following its closing, Jonathan Cash expressed his
by Interstate 35. The desirability of this side of town plans to scale down the amount shows he books
among University of Texas grads and other millennial under the ATX Noise banner over the next few
transplants has ballooned in the last fifteen years, months.
inflating the property values of these would-be blue Beyond the more niche realm of abrasive art,
collar homes at an alarmingly fast rate. the past six months found Austins prominent DIY
7 ADHOC 2/4
venues closing their doors. Sect One held shows every That SSLEEPERHOLDs techno-futurism can
MAX PARROTT
expectations of a typical bar venue. The deeper distinct from the power-electronics-centric fare of
an artist delves into shock like Roy Wren or crude Sux By Sux West, but theyre quite different from
perceptions like Lisa Crystal Carver, the harder it each other: Total Abuse tends to write aggressive
becomes for them to get booked by a bar looking for dirges skewered by feedback while Spray Paint has
cordial, milquetoast entertainment aimed at drawing developed a dissonant tuning system that defines
in passers by from the street in order to sell a few their erratic style of composition. What the bands
more drinks. share are lyrics centered on a cast of societal outliers
Aesthetically, most noise shows in Austin ranging from murderers, addicts, perverts, and
tend to be esoteric. While Johnathan Cashs ethos sadists, all folks unable to resign themselves to
for putting bills together values an outr spirit in the social contract. The popularity of the social
opposition to a specific set of rules about how to misfit narrative stems from the association between
approach music making, one of the acts on Holodeck countercultural self-development and the tendency
Recordss roster, SSLEEPERHOLD, is a distillation of counter-cultural types to decline into degeneracy.
of the rage and relief therapy Ive come to crave Both the decision to make outr music ones life
from an ATX Noise show. With the project, Jos work and the forms of nihilism that these two bands
Cota marries the sinister refinement of midi- tend to document are linked by the impulse to flout
sequenced synth hardware with the noisy clattering conventions.
of tape manipulation. Live, Cota EQs his snares high The age of SlackerRichard Linklaters
and dirty enough to give the sensation of a smack to portrait of Austin as a city without a professional
the back of the head, blasting them over driving bass orderhas passed. The rapidly rising cost of living,
arpeggios that snarl and contort in timbre, at once the unprecedented population growth, the growing
heavily mechanized and immersed in chaotic noise. density of corporate interests, and a booming
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tech sector are all forces that are incongruous of many corporate-funded South By South West
MAX PARROTT
There is a p o i n t w h e re t h e
urban dan c e o f exo t i c fo o d
trucks and fa s h i o n a b l e
cocktails c e a s e s t o
express in d i v i d u a l i t y, a n d
begins to re f l e c t u s a s
targets of m a r ke t i n g a n d
b u siness s t r a t e g y.
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